The Etheric World

The Etheric level is intermediate between the Physical and the
Psychic world. Due to the gradational nature of reality, ac-cording
to which everything can be conceived of as a vast spectrum or continuum,
every vertical level or world can be con-sidered intermediate between the
two worlds which border it on either side (i.e. above and below).

Steiner referred to the most primary form of etheric substance, from
which the original "Old Saturn" stage of the Earth was formed, as Warmth-Ether,
that is, substance that consist of "heat" or "warmth". Now,
according to physical science, there is no ac-tual substance called "heat";
temperature is simply the result of the motion or speed of vibration
of atoms and other particles. The faster the particle
vibrates, the "hotter" it is. According to Steiner, "heat"
is an actual substance, which stands in the same relation to gas
as gas does to liquid. It would seem that Steiner adhered to
the old idea of pholidistin

Now, I for one think we can take the word of physicists when they
say there is no such substance as "heat". This does not mean
that Steiner was wrong though. It only means that he was not
describing something which is actually physical, but rather something
which preceeds the physical.

On the scale of levels of being (table ) one finds that above
the physical is the etheric level. Now, all these levels can be divided
into sublevels, so we can speak of an etheric level which is just above
the physical, and call this the heat- etheric. In fact, Steiner elsewhere
does just that, for he distinguishes between the "four ethers", the
first and most primitive of which he calls "warmth ether".
The three other ethers evolve sequentially from this one. An
important Anthroposophical writer, Guenther Wachsmuth, gives this
table:

Spatial tendency

direction of force

Form tendency

State induced

Warmth ether

Expansive or centrifugal (radiating)

Spherical

Heat

Light ether

ditto

triangular

Gas

Chemical/Sound

Suctional, centripedal (towards centre)

Fluid

Fluid

Life ether

ditto

Square

Solid

It is not often that experimental physical confirmation is found
for subtle esoteric-occult concepts, but Dennis Milner and Edward
Smart, work-ing with high voltage (Kirlian type) photography, not
only detected "auras" of objects, but also, much more interestingly,
the four Steiner ethers. These are described as follows:

"...because light ether devolves to warmth ether
and warmth ether evolves to light ether, information has been obtained
[using these high-voltage photographic techniques] about warmth ether
activity. Since chemical ether devolves to light ether and
vice versa it might be expected that under suitable conditions it
would also register...and some of the results...suggest this.
Life ether, being two stages removed from light ether, is less likely
to register with the present photographic technique..."

In any case, some of the results of this technique are shown in the
following figures.

Milner and Smart conceived of the ethers as being in a kind of
sequence from the chaotic state of warmth ether, which is pure spirit,
to life ether, which immediately preceeds matter (fig ).
The trouble with this theory is that one would expect warmth ether, being
the most subtle, to be hardest to photograph, and life ether easiest, with
the other two occupying an intermediate position. In fact,
the exact reverse is the case. This would seem to support the position
of Steiner, who seems to indicate (although for some reason he is never
very clear on this point) a dual evolution, begin-ning with warmth and
going on the one hand to solid matter and the other to life-ether.

On a more occult level, Rudolph Steiner describes Etheric reality as
the region of the "nature-spirits", or "elementals", to use the term coined
by Paracelsus. Steiner sees the elemental spirits as dynamic forces
intimately connected with biological forces and the rhythms of nature;
and especially with the growth of plants.

In this respect there is an interesting connection with the early
claims by the Findhorn community; a "New Age" (in the posi-tive, rather
than the sensationalist, sense) centre in Northern Scotland who based
their work on the interaction between the human and the nature kingdoms,
especially the nature-spirits or elementals concerned with plant-growth.
Much of the early publicised Findhorn community material [e.g. The Magic
of Findhorn by Paul Hawken, and The Findhorn Garden, a group work] is concerned
with the interactions between the humans working on this project and the
various nature and angelic beings. The na-ture spirits are considered
directly responsible for plant growth. According to R. Ogilvy
Crombie, one of the four founding figures of the Findhorn community: "The
elementals or nature spirits...use the energy chan-nelled to them by the
devas [angelic beings; the archetypes of species] to build up an
etheric body or etheric counter-part for each plant, according to its archetypal
pattern....

Both Steiner and the Findhorn community would agree that when we move
beyond physical reality, we come to a formative existence which is neither
physical nor psychic, but rather something inbetween; the principle of
Life, or the "etheric" principle as Steiner and the Theosophists term it.
It is this formative reality which constitutes the locus of growth and
life in the physical world.

A great deal more could be said here regarding the nature of this
reality. One could launch into a discussion on such phenomena
as dowsing and earth energies, radionics, kirlian photography, acupuncture,
and Reichian therapy, for all, despite their physical aspects, relate
in greater or lesser degree to the Etheric reality. Even phenomena
such as UFOs relate ultimately to the Etheric rather than the physical.
Then there are the scientific hypotheses of Rupert Sheldrake regarding
the subtle and non-energic formative fields, analogous to the "etheric
for-mative forces" of Steiner and his successors; and physicist David
Bohm's distinction between the "Explicate" or manifest physical reality,
and the "Implicate" or enfolded, latent, reality. For all these
observations and techniques relate not to the purely physical world
of matter and energy, nor the purely non-physical, non-spatial psychic
world, but to an intermediate reality, neither physical nor psychic,
which could be termed the Forma-tive, and which Theosophists and others
call the "Etheric".